Notification of change in transaction fee

Dear current 4aGoodCause clients:

Please be notified of a slight adjustment in our e-commerce transaction fee, effective January 1, 2012. We have maintained the same $0.25 per transaction fee for over a decade now. As much as I would like to maintain this rate for another year, we must adjust it to cover increased technology expenses we have seen over the past few years. This fee will be increasing $0.07 for a new transaction fee of $0.32 per transaction.

Thank you for understanding that this price increase means that we can continue to maintain the superior standard of our services for the coming year. We anticipate no other pricing changes at this time. We strive to continue to keep our hosting fees among the lowest around and we remain one of the best e-commerce values. Our clients, on average, see a $50 return on every dollar spent with us.

Should you have any questions regarding this price change or our services, please contact me at 770-517-5962. We appreciate your business very much and are proud to be working for your good cause. 

Thank you,

Ronald Pruitt
President
4aGoodCause

Turn Cyber Monday into Giving Monday

Monday is Cyber Monday, one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. While you are online shopping for Christmas gifts for your loved ones, please think about also making a gift for those less fortunate. Give back by making an online donation to a good cause.  Online donations are safe, easy and will make a big impact for the nonprofit you choose to give to, whatever the size of the gift.

Here are some great causes to choose from...

Acts of Giving Alliance
Adopt-a-Classroom
Adoption Network Cleveland
Alzheimer's Foundation of Caregiving in Canada
Alzheimer's Foundation of America
AIDE
Aid to Inmate Mothers
Alabama Ear Institute
American Association of Suicidology
Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities
B' Fly Girls
Bayat Foundation
Birmingham International Center
Birmingham Zoo
Bishop Museum
Boulder Shambhala Center
Bright Future Jobs
Bruce Roberts Toy Fund
Catawba College
Center for Global Ministries
Cheltenham School District
Collat Jewish Family Services
Committee to Elect Kenn Young
Community Foundation of New Jersey
Community Foundation of the Ozarks
Concordia University Chicago
Curing Kids Cancer
Disability Rights NC
Easter Seals Central Alabama
Emerge! Center Against Domestic Abuse
Everybody Wins Atlanta
Family Honor
Ft. Wayne Children's Zoo
Georgia Christian School
Griffin School
Gulf of Maine Research Institute
Gwinnett County Public School Foundation
Historical Society of Frederick County
Honolulu Academy of Arts
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
Inter-Faith Food Shuttle
Jewish Family Services of Greenwich
Jobs for Maine's Graduates
Juniper Foundation
Kate's Club
Kauai Museum
Laogai Research Foundation
Lassiter High School
Lighthouse Counseling Center
Los Angeles Fire Department Historical Society
Maine Community Foundation
Manna Freedom
Mercy Foundation for Health Innovation
Mercy Health Center Foundation
Mercy Health Foundation of NW Arkansas
Mercy Health of Joplin Foundation
Mercy Hospital Foundation Independence
Mercy Memorial Foundation
Mission Houses Museum
Missouri Citizens for Property Rights
Mitchell Institute
Montclair Fund for Educational Excellence
MySafe:LA
Nooristan Foundation
North American Butterfly Association
Northeast Indiana Public Radio
Northeastern PA Council BSA
Olympic Animal Sanctuary
Palm Village Retirement Community
Preble Street
Project C.U.R.E.
Pro Start Academy Scholarship Fund
Ramapo College Foundation
Ray Festa Melanoma Foundation
RCCC Foundation
Ronald McDonald House Charities - Baltimore
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Florida
Santa Barbara Soccer Club
Save the Manatee Club
Silicon Valley Venture Fund
Southwest Christian Care
Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System Foundation
St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park
St. Edward Mercy Foundation
St. John's Foundation for Community Health
St. John's Mercy Foundation
St. John's Mercy Hospital Foundation
The Lionheart School
Transportation Association of Greenwich
Tuskegee-Macon County CDC
United Methodist Children's Home
Unity Church of Hawaii
Village Academy of Schools
Visiting Nurse & Hospice of Fairfield County
Voices for Alabama's Children
Volunteers in Public Schools
Way FM
WellStar Foundation
Wildlife Australia Fund
YWCA of Trenton
Zaman International

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4aGoodCause helps Griffin School take online donations and school fee payment

We'd like to welcome Griffin School to our family of good causes. Griffin School is a private college preparatory high school, located in  Austin, TX, that empowers its students through a focus on the arts.

Griffin School is using 4aGoodCause to accept online donations and school fee payment (coming soon).

Learn more about Griffin School.

Kaua‘i Museum selling membership and taking donations online with 4aGoodCause

We'd like to welcome Kaua‘i Museum to our family of good causes. The Kaua‘i Museum, located in Lihue, Hawaii, has collections and exhibits that tell the story of the island of Kaua‘i, from the birth of the island up through the Territorial Period.

Kaua‘i Museum is using 4aGoodCause to accept online donations and online membership payment.

Learn more about Kaua‘i Museum.

Tuskegee Macon County CDC launches new website with help from 4aGoodCause

Tuskegee Macon County Community Development Corporation (TuskMac CDC) is a small nonprofit in Tuskegee, Alabama that facilitates successful community development opportunities in and around the historically and culturally rich cities/towns of Tuskegee, Shorter, Franklin, and Notasulga, Alabama.

TuskMac CDC contacted us a few weeks ago in hopes we could assist them in building a new website.  For many years, their only web presence has simply been a page on the Tuskegee University site.  They had a very small budget but big hopes for their own website.

We are happy to announce the fruits of that project. The TuskMac CDC web site went live today.

The site was designed to give more awareness of TuskMac CDC programs (such as the Greenfork Park project) and to encourage more community involvment to support their efforts as they empower the businesses and citizens of Macon County to improve their local community.

TuskMac CDC has a easy-to-use CMS that makes the site easy to maintain going forward. We also installed our email service to allow them to easily gather email addresses and send out an email newsletter.

Let us know what you think about the new site and please visit TuskMac CDC and offer your support of their mission. Be sure to like them on Facebook. They are just getting started with social media.

Rates for credit card processing are coming down for nonprofits

We've got some good news for our clients that have set up their credit card processing through our partner, Dharma Merchant Services (with their cost-plus pricing model). Your rates are going down! Here are the annoucements from Dharma's latest newsletter...
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Durbin Amendment Rate Changes

We've all heard a lot about the impact of the Durbin Amendment (Bank of America, yikes!) so we'd like to address the impact that these changes have on you.

The amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Reform Act legislation went into effect on October 1, 2011 and addresses changes to the industry buy rates, also known as Interchange Fees, for debit card transactions.  These are the costs that apply equally to every merchant service provider.  The great news about this amendment is that the buy rates are now capped at 0.05% and $0.21 per item for debit card transactions, whether or not the customer enters their PIN number.  This new cap also applies to prepaid and stored value cards!

What this means is if your swiped account is based on cost-plus pricing of 0.25% and $0.10, the fees that would be charged for a debit card sale are: 0.05% (new, capped buy rate) + 0.12% (Visa/MasterCard Dues and Assessments) + 0.25% (our margin) = 0.42% and $0.21 (new, capped buy rate) + $0.10 (our margin) = $0.31 per item.

Whereas the previous “all-in” fee for a swiped debit card sale was 1.32% plus $0.30 per item, the new "all-in" fee is now 0.42% plus $0.31 per item.

Here are examples of how this plays out with a $100 transaction:

Old swiped "all-in" rates: $100 x 1.32% = $1.97 + $0.30 = $1.62
New swiped "all-in" rates: $100 x 0.42% = $0.42 + $0.31 = $0.73 = $0.89 in savings!
Old keyed "all-in" rates: $100 x 1.97% = $1.97 + $0.25 = $2.22
New keyed "all-in" rates: $100 x 0.42% = $0.42 + $0.31 = $0.73 = $1.49 in savings!

Those of you on tiered pricing will continue to see debit transaction fees charged at the lower debit fee rate. The only caveat to these new buy rates is that they only apply if the debit card is issued by a regulated bank.  Regulated banks have greater than $10 billion in assets.  Banks with less than $10 billion in assets are exempt from this new regulation, hence the previous rates would apply.  Therefore it's difficult to estimate the overall savings that you can expect from this amendment.  In general, small average ticket sales may see more debit card usage than credit cards, so if these sales were done on regulated debit cards, you would see a reduction in your overall processing fees.

Of course, as we've all seen in the news, there have been other downsides to this amendment.  For now we're just going to stay positive and focus on the reduction in fees!

New Visa Charity Rates
There is even more good news this month as Visa USA has just announced a new category of Interchange Fees for charitable organizations, with buy rates of only 1.35% plus $0.05!  These fees apply to credit cards processed in both card-present and card-not-present environments.  The only downside to these new buy rates is that they only apply to "Charitable and Social Service Organizations" that are given an MCC code of 8398.  Visa has not extended this to not-for-profits such as trade associations; political, professional or religious organizations; libraries or membership organizations.  However if you are classified with an MCC of 8398, the new lower buy rates are automatically applied on your account.
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Have questions about whether these changes apply to your merchant account rates? Want to save money on your credit card processing? Get in touch.